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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29687535">A Ballad of Greed and Envy</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/C0r4a/pseuds/C0r4a'>C0r4a</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>DragonFable (Video Game)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>AU, Angst, Canon Divergence, F/M, No beta we die like tomix, Nobody Dies, Void Ship, also throwing shade at warlic, hero insert, hero upsets a lot of people, i wrote this in a fever-dream kind of state, just an fyi, like most of them actually, they/them hero</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-16 01:49:03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,343</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29687535</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/C0r4a/pseuds/C0r4a</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Upon the V.S. Unity, when they hear Tomix's whispered confession of no return, the hero chooses to be selfish.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Tomix Danao &amp; Hero, Tomix Danao/Hero</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>A Ballad of Greed and Envy</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The ship door slung shut behind them, yet they could hear his uttered words, clear as the day that never shone in the Void. </p>
<p>“I don’t plan on coming back.” </p>
<p>The hero had stopped in their tracks, ledden fear pouring down from their heart to their feet, grounding them against the wooden planks of the V.S. Unity. They had half a mind to turn right back around, grab his arms and scream, but just as they could not force themselves to move forward, they found the way back to be an impossible feat as well. </p>
<p>Lady Celestia, nestled on the plains of Sunbreeze grove, tilted her head and smiled from afar. Serenity’s wise eyes gazed with an overflowing kindness over the familiar and worn bar of her inn. They hoped that they would forgive them, and perhaps, in time, they could. Perhaps they, somehow, already did. </p>
<p>From further away, Riadne was shouting orders. A sail had torn in one of the stronger storms and a young soulweaver now hung from the raven’s nest, nimble fingers repairing the fabrics. The sails hummed with thousands of untold stories, of feelings and hopes and <em>souls</em>. Somewhere, they were more than sails. They were people who loved and laughed and walked hand in hand. Some of them would dream of endless purple, of debris and storms that would toss around the unwanted, but none of them would know the truth of it, feel the screams of the abandoned cut through their very bone. </p>
<p>And the hero hated them for it. Hated every soul who would never know what it meant to descend into an <em>absence</em> to save someone you loved from himself, only to realize that he had to be left behind… That he had never even considered leaving the realm of the unbeing. By the Avatars, there was everything wrong with that! He was wanted- no, he was <em>needed</em>, sorely, like they needed soil or cool water, like they needed Terra or Aegis. He belonged home, by a roaring fire, waiting for them after a long day on the road. He would take their axe from between tired fingers and give them his hand instead. How could the Void claim such a life?</p>
<p>A hand that no longer existed and that they could never again hold. </p>
<p>Because they always needed to be the hero.</p>
<p>But hadn’t the people of Falconreach spoken? Hadn’t they thrown down their contempt before their feet? What if they had been right? The world had spun for five years without a hero, and it would keep spinning for many more. While they built a home among the tides of nothing. While they drifted, lost and eternal, but <em>together</em>. </p>
<p>They had never been more certain about anything. </p>
<p>The soulweaver finished the last thread of the sail. A storm picked up. The ship shook. His grip slipped from the crow’s nest. The Hero of Lore retired to their room. </p>
<p>***</p>
<p>“I thought I had chosen a hero.” </p>
<p>The chill in Aegis’ voice froze the air around him, yet it was the contempt that squeezed at their heart. Still, the hero simply shook their head. “Perhaps you did. Once.” </p>
<p>“A soul and a spirit of valor. A Hero of Lore. <em>Lore</em>. That’s how many people depend on you. I know your soul as I do my own, it will weigh on you for the rest of your life, the lives that will be sacrificed now, through this one choice.” </p>
<p>Their eyes met, though it wasn’t necessary. Even speaking was hardly a need between them anymore and yet neither thought they could make the other understand without it. Not in this ever-shifting place that threatened to bury them all under its tides. </p>
<p>“You know my heart, Aegis.” They had stilled in their movements, paused their pacing, and looked now, with no walls or shields, towards their soulmate.</p>
<p>“As if were my own.”  </p>
<p>“Then you will know this will kill me. His absence, <em>again</em>. A lost life, <em>again</em>. I just got him back.” </p>
<p>Threads of his soul shifted when Aegis shook his head. “It won’t. We are strong.” </p>
<p>And he could feel something in their soul snap. </p>
<p>And they could feel something in his breath catch. </p>
<p>“What if I don’t want to be strong anymore? Ever since I met Kortana, I have been but a means to delay the reset. Keep balance for a month, a year, a decade longer. Nothing but a pawn for Warlick to push around until he is still finding this iteration of us amusing.”</p>
<p>Their voice broke, for the first time in many, many years. </p>
<p>“I am tired. I cracked so very long ago, before the ice, before the sun. You remember the day. I asked you if we’d ever be happy and you didn’t respond.” </p>
<p>He doesn’t respond now, either.</p>
<p>The door of the room next to theirs closes. The hero presses their dragon amulet to their heart. It is time to go. Aegis is no longer standing in front of the door. They will regret this choice, but for the first time, it will be one that they have made. </p>
<p>They leave their room and Isaac waves to them in greeting before joining Riadne in hers. It looks easy on them, leaving one room and entering the next. </p>
<p>Their steps hasten. A dull hum of void winds awaits on the deck, greets them in their hair, between their outstretched fingers. The gem in their spirit looms glows yellow and glows purple for a moment and then it is gone again, their calloused hand resting on his shoulder, fingers digging into the fabric of that cursed coat, desperate, so desperate. Their voice cracks a second time: </p>
<p>“We’re leaving.”</p>
<p>He calls their name, but they won’t listen. This is their escape, their way out and they won’t beg for it, they will <em>take</em>.</p>
<p>The dragon amulet throbs in tune with Terra’s heart. Their own rabbits madly in their rib-cage. Tomix’s hand goes right through theirs, unable to stop either of them as they are torn off the edge of V.S. Unity by the last rumble of a storm of nothing. </p>
<p>They are falling. </p>
<p>Quite like they had when the two of them had just begun.</p>
<p>They were falling through a vortex of black and purple, a darkness engulfing nothing. It felt like it would never end, this descent that begun from a wish to run away. They closed their eyes and their hands gripped nothing. </p>
<p>Then, dark, but brighter. Their back hit something solid and their eyes opened to see what had slotted so neatly into their outstretched hand. </p>
<p>A stranger pulled them up. </p>
<p>“Hello. It’s good to see another human in this dark undercity.” </p>
<p>“…!” </p>
<p>A cry of their name and they realize that there are arms around them, that they are screaming. Tomix has his lips pressed against the crown of their hair, mouthing their name over and over, intermingled with gentle noises that aren’t able to be carried away even by the void winds. Someone’s heart is beating furiously somewhere between their bodies. </p>
<p>“What have you done?” he whispers, pulling away to look at them, golden eyes so so stark in his pale face.</p>
<p>“I love you,” they respond, as if it explains anything. </p>
<p>It does.</p>
<p>They have never seen this smile on him. This quirk of lips that tries. Tries to hard to be happy but fails and falls. Like them. Like the both of them it falls back into sadness. He says: “I love you too.” </p>
<p>And he says: “Now tell Terra to take us back.” And they don’t know if he understood after all. </p>
<p>The hero raises their hand to their heart. A snap echoes in the void, the loudest sound it has ever had to contain. Rigid fingers loosen around a beating heart and they don’t know if he’ll ever forgive them, but they would do anything, anything for him to live. </p>
<p>“He isn’t mine to command.” </p>
<p>They didn’t know dragons could scream, but Terra does. </p>
<p>An amulet plummets into the nothingness of the void.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thank you for reading A Ballad of Greed and Envy! <br/>I've had this idea floating around my head for a while now and during a 2 AM haze, I finally got it on paper. Although I didn't plan on it initially, I will be continuing this in further chapters.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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